Big crane lift for Saudi Aramco flare stack in Yanbu

June 22, 2015

For heavy lift companies this is pushing the envelope on their equipment demands, illustrated by a recent lift at a Saudi Aramco facility in Yanbu by Gulf Haulage Heavy Lift (GHHL).

Saudi Aramco has installed the first flare stack under these new environmental guidelines at a Yanbu plant. The structure was built to a height of 200m, with stack structure segments weighing betweenÂ 21 andÂ 104 tonnes.

Saudi Aramco has installed the first flare stack under new environmental guidelines at its Yanbu plant.

Due to the structureâ€™s weight and height and coupled with difficult site conditions, GHHL chose to use its Terex CC 8800-1 crawler crane, which has a maximum lifting weight of 1,600t.

The project was not without difficulties. The exposed position of the facility near the Red Sea meant that high winds were a factor, severely limiting the time crews had to complete each lift.

â€œEvery day at approximately 11:00 hours winds would increase from a light breeze of 2m/s to sustained gusts reaching 16m/s, and this would sometimes continue all afternoon and evening,â€ said Sanjay Pachisia, general manager of GHHL.

Permissible lift wind-speed levels ranged from 4.1m/s to 7.1m/s, depending on which flare section was being positioned.

The project also required a low ground bearing pressure of 12t/m2 for constructing the craneâ€™s boom configurations and lifting the flare stack.

For the job, the CC 8800-1 was used in multiple boom and jib combinations, with the 108m main boom used for the lower level lift (of the heavier section), with the luffing jib added for the higher segments, configured for a system length of 216m.

â€œWe chose the crane configurations carefully, in a way that the change consisted of only adding luffing jib boom sections and not change the main boom length,â€ said Pachisia.

In all, the Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refinery Project required 11 working days to complete the six complex lifts to finish placing the flare stack segments. Once completed, crews disassembled the CC 8800-1 crane and mobilized it back to GHHLâ€™s Dammam facility, a process that took approximately ten days.

Big crane lift for Saudi Aramco flare stack in Yanbu was last modified: June 22nd, 2015 by Crane Network

Since 1998, CraneNetwork.com has been the #1 resource for buying and selling cranes, heavy equipment, parts and attachments. Today we’re your first and final destination for the latest solutions and networking resources in the industry. Over 30,000 companies and individuals rely on our online services to effectively manage their fleet for the sale and rental of cranes and equipment.